Top 16 Reasons People Hate SEOs

I tend to take it a bit personal when people hate on SEO – I guess I do understand sometimes – I suppose it’s like being a lawyer or something, and I should probably just get used to it, but I enjoy search and optimization so much it just bugs me at times. It makes me wonder about the reasons WHY anyhow, so like usual – I thought I’d make a list. I TRIED to give a compliment and some constructive criticism for Digg today – and managed to get hated off the homepage. We’re really not all out to get you, nor bad people.

Top 16 Reasons People Hate SEO’s

They don’t understand it
They think it’s black magic
Link valuation and buying is highly convoluted
They still buy submission services
Doug
There’s only 10 spots
They lost their FREE traffic to an SEO
Blogspam
Irrelevant search results suck
They use MSN
They think SEO’s are always up to something
Like Mom says – they’re just jealous
SEO’s can’t agree on anything *
Bad SEO’s overpromise and underdeliver to get your business, and good SEO’s won’t take your business *
The attack hook

*Thanks Andy

Do you have any theories on why people hate SEO’s so much?

Todd Malicoat

More information about Todd Malicoat aka stuntdubl.

http://www.mma-training.com David

They believe that it is Cheating and is Unfair.

They don’t seem to realize that many SEO’s work very hard to give the searchers and search engines exactly what they are looking for. Good quality content. In essence it is playing by the rules – create high quality, unique content – that gets them to the top. Not reason #2.
http://www.acquisio.com Marc P

Interesting, but I’d say the number 1 reason, by a long shot, is that they were sold a submission service or some ranking reports, or both.
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http://www.srclarke.com Todd Mintz

17)They saw Shoemoney’s photo for the first time: http://www.shoemoney.com/gallery/v/misc/adsensecheck.jpg.html
http://www.10e20.com Chris Winfield

The feeling that I get from digg users is overwhelmingly #11 (They think SEO’s are always up to something).
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Jim

Where is reason #12?
http://www.stuntdubl.com Stuntdubl SEO

haha…good eye Jim – ummm…it’s like the 13th floor of a hotel – I left it out for superstitions sake:)
http://www.distinctseo.com barry

Because they paid peanuts for their first SEO and got nothing. Then they realised how much quality SEO costs and decided to grudge instead.
http://www.imnotadoctor.com imnotadoctor

I think #15 is a major reason. People can’t get the bad taste out of their mouth from a horrible SEO experience.
http://www.webmastermydomain.com Joe Whyte

the attack hook! Don’t forget some SEO’s don’t shower.. Ohh and the SEO who thinks he knows everything.
http://www.rapidwebdesign.com.au/blog RapidWeb

Nice list. Its so true! I like 13. Like Mom says – they’re just jealous. Always tiring to out do Shoemoney’s payout!
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http://www.sandbergventures.com Chris Sandberg

I think most people don’t really understand the SEO industry and view SEO as trying to cheat the search engines. BlackHats don’t help with many of the misconceptions people have about the SEO industry.
SEOidiot

Re 14… i dont agree
http://saleshub.net tim

In the last 6 months, i have talked to about 700 small to medium sized online merchants (about 6/day).

Believe me, these guys have every right to distrust SEO – I am amazed on a daily basis at how much bad info, flat-out lies & ripped off merchants I come across.

In general, they want to improve their rankings but don’t know where to turn. They are so busy taking orders, loading products, shipping items, dealing with customer issues, dealing with vendors, accounting issues etc. they don’t have time to really find someone they can trust and afford.
http://speedypin.com Eric Itzkowitz

17. Revenge of the Nerds came true!
—-> Today’s nerd makes more money than them.
—-> Today’s nerd is hip; chicks dig them.

(:
nuevojefe

#99 because we get them rankings, traffic, and then they’re not equipped to handle it. And that’s our fault.
http://wmd.hr Ilija Djivic

I ddidi not heard that people hate SEO, im my country (Croatia) just love it :)
http://rumblepup-on-seo.blogspot.com rumblepup

Because as much as we follow SEO and SEM, your average business web owner doesn’t. When I have to suggest redesigns, renames, text and content suggestions, the owners go nuts.

I actually had a site owner that thought that “Targeting a keyword” meant adding it to the meta keywords tag. I instruct to the best of my ability, but sometimes they really and honestly think they can do it all themselves.

Because the average site owner is not up to speed on search technology, they think that SEO’s, SEM’s lie to them, or are concocting something in order to get business.
http://www.eukhost.com Dave White

Well I do agree to all the top 16 reasons why people hate SEO. But the bottom-line is that they do not have a proper understanding about it and the second thing or due to this reason they fall prey to the corrupt minds and then such mis-concepts develop among them.
I have been doing Seo for a good time and the benefits that I derive from it are tremendous.I have also helped many others without any fees and they were also amazed by the positive results that came after using SEO techniques.
Without proper knowledge using anything is just an open invitation to negativity.
http://www.timlinden.com/blog/ Tim Linden

My reason “I can’t get it to work”. I’ve got a site that is 5 years old and is considered one of the top sites in the industry. Yet new copy cat sites can start up and rank higher than me in a week. So I’m not sure if it’s me hating SEO, or rather just hating new sites doing better.
http://advanet.blogspot.com/ seo australia

There could be many other reasons like: wiki spam, mirror websites, content spam, link farms, keyword stuffing but all that is a natural progression in designing more precise and foolproof algorithms by search engine companies.
http://www.sitelogicmarketing.com Matt Bailey

LOL @ Doug.

Friggin’ hilarious.
http://www.tomdalton.com Tom Dalton

I’ll tell you why I hate it — it undermines the integrity of the Internet. Ever seen a movie and come away thinking, “that was clearly designed by committee?”

The SEO industry moves the Internet in that direction. The simplest organizational pieces (accurate meta tags, clear descriptions, etc.) are okay, but everything beyond that — the link recruitment, the sales tactics and the way the industry has evolved, the content creation… The spammy sites that have popped up, scrapers and duplicate content penalties, endless arguments over the precise weight of meta tags… That basically SEOs are bottom feeders, adding little overall value to the Internet (except, again, for the basic value of increased, clear organization).

Those sorts of things. I have a complex love/hate relationship with SEO, really, I suppose. Today’s a “hate” day, and this post provided the channel I needed to get some of it out.

Thank you.